I've read numerous reports of the 'grattle' (Grado rattle) that happens when Grado cans have one (or both) of the membranes of their drivers creased and wrinkled in places - causing rattling on low bass notes and channel imbalance. Does this creasing and wrinkling occur only when the cans are blasted at monstrous levels, or does it happen even at just higher-than-average listening volumes?

How loud do you have to drive your cans in order to actually damage them, and is it likely that anyone with normal hearing would listen at that level normally without knowing he/she was damaging their headphones?

Gear mentioned in this thread:

Grado's, like most higher end headphones, can take FAR more input power than anyone should reasonably feed them for normal listening, so I don't think thats a problem you'll have to worry about creating ("blowing" them)

Agree with obobskivich, no need to worry. I actually blasted my RS-1 at monstrous level with pink noise for 12 hours straight when I first got it, and it survived. Nothing I would recommend others to do though...

[Edit]I know hair in the driver could cause grattle, but I can not recall to have read about blown drivers... [/Edit]

Hmm. I know that my friend broke his Sonys while playing them fairly loudly for two other people (he set them down on a table and turned the volume up)... Could Grados be used for makeshift speakers more readily?

I've read numerous reports of the 'grattle' (Grado rattle) that happens when Grado cans have one (or both) of the membranes of their drivers creased and wrinkled in places - causing rattling on low bass notes and channel imbalance. Does this creasing and wrinkling occur only when the cans are blasted at monstrous levels, or does it happen even at just higher-than-average listening volumes?

How loud do you have to drive your cans in order to actually damage them, and is it likely that anyone with normal hearing would listen at that level normally without knowing he/she was damaging their headphones?

Where are these "numerous reports?" I'm only aware of one case in which the "grattle" you speak about was caused by a creased membrane. The guy used tape to gently pull the membrane back into place. That's it. When you hear talk about "grattle," it's normally the result of a hair making its way into the driver housing, as nor_spoon points out above.

Where are these "numerous reports?" I'm only aware of one case in which the "grattle" you speak about was caused by a creased membrane. The guy used tape to gently pull the membrane back into place. That's it. When you hear talk about "grattle," it's normally the result of a hair making its way into the driver housing, as nor_spoon points out above.

There was also QQQ who noted that he had creased drivers when he opened his Grado up.

It's only Grado headphones I've seen this creased driver membrane thing described about so I'm coming to the conclusion that they're more fragile than most.

But my question simply is: do you really need to go to quite extreme volumes to get the crease in the driver to develop, or will it even come with above-average listening volumes?

don't remember where the thread was, but basically with a few exceptions, most any hi-fi headphone can take a ridiculous amount of power without being damaged

@ kayito
the hp's your friend blew up were probably less than stellar drivers, and they were probably closed principle as well (two issues there, firstly back pressure on the driver, secondly he probably had them a lot louder than you'd take open 'phones to "share")

at the question about Grado drivers being in speakers, find the Grado factory tour, RS-1 drivers are featured in a couple in-house designs

But I wasn't talking about them breaking completely, I was only talking about the driver membranes becoming SLIGHTLY deformed and creased, thus resulting in a SLIGHT channel imbalance. Isn't it probable that to do this, you would require much lower sound pressure levels and current? The kind of sound pressure and current levels a listener who listens at slightly higher than average volume levels might reach?

But I wasn't talking about them breaking completely, I was only talking about the driver membranes becoming SLIGHTLY deformed and creased, thus resulting in a SLIGHT channel imbalance. Isn't it probable that to do this, you would require much lower sound pressure levels and current? The kind of sound pressure and current levels a listener who listens at slightly higher than average volume levels might reach?

notice how there were like 4-5 posts saying this isn't the case, and most of them referenced a few sources each (or just a collective "mass" of knowledge), instead laying grattle off to hair (which is usually the cause)